A Dutch superstar, an unyielding architect, a force for good, a style soothsayer, a digital visionary and 71 perfect products. That’s what you’ll find here in our fifth annual report on the intersection of business and design. Plus you'll also find slideshows, Masters of Design exclusive video, expert design blog, and an invitation to join the FastCompany.com Design Topic Group.

The inventor of Velcro ripped cockleburs from his dog's fur. Da Vinci and the Wright brothers studied birds in flight. And now a rising number of designers are looking to nature for inspiration. Companies as diverse as Boeing, Ford, General Electric, Herman Miller, HP, IBM, Kraft, Nike, and Patagonia are welcoming biologists to the design lab. Here's a sampling of Mother Nature at work.

Whether it's our impending obsession with veils and turbans or our "global quest for decadence," Li Edelkoort knows what's coming. She is the oracle behind Trend Union, the go-to source for trend forecasting for the fashion, beauty, retail, automotive, consumer-electronics, and interior-design industries. And you might not believe what she sees on the horizon.

American industrial designers are the secret heroes of the marketplace, finessing products to make them easier to use and help them sell better. Here's how five top firms have been busy shaping our world.

Now

Looking back over 50 years of National Boss Days (October 16), workers everywhere may notice one thing has remained constant: The big money is concentrated at the top, and the bigs are mostly men. As for the talent? Well, we have nothing controversial to say. After all, we're up for promotion. Right, boss?

Do you know who to blame for those crazy-low CD returns? The 10 men and women of the FOMC — five regional Fed presidents and five Fed governors — will gather October 28 — 29 in Washington, D.C., to set monetary policy and consider interest rates.

Clams, shrimp, spicy-tuna rolls: Yum! Global seafood consumption has tripled during the past 50 years. At the fifth World Fisheries Congress (October 20 — 24) in Yokohama, Japan, sustainability — of the $155 billion industry and the animals it depends on — will be the big concern. Here are seven species on the menu.

Lia Vollack, Sony's soundtrack guru, is the shrewdest music executive in Hollywood. In the past five years, in the face of a little glitch called the Failure of the Music Industry — the 40% drop in CD sales since 2000 — Vollack's power has grown immensely. Why? Because soundtracks — often purchased as a keepsake of a movie — reliably sell CDs. Can the record labels keep her happy long enough to hold onto their last cash cow?

Eastman Kodak is bringing a proactive attitude to its entry into the anticounterfeiting market, a field where business is usually conducted in whispers. The legendary company uses its ink expertise to help American businesses stop losing $250 billion annually to counterfeiting, using it Traceless technology to address a problem that globalization is only going to make worse.

From the Editor

If I had thought ahead, I would have gotten a pedicure. A few weeks ago, I was at an executive retreat and found myself in a strategy session that took place in an open-air porch. All of us were sporting shorts (or skirts) and bare feet. Seeing so many toes was, to say the least, unexpected.